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THE AMENABILITY* 

OF 

igORTKERN ir7CENDIARIES, 

AS WELL TO 

SOUTHERN AS TO NORTHERN LAWS, 

WITHOUT PREJUDICE TO 

THE RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION ; 

TO WHICH IS ADDED 

>«.Vv AM INQUIRY 

INTO THE 

LAWFULNESS OF SLAVERY, 

UNDER 
THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN DISPENSATIONS, 

TOGETHER WITH OTHER VIEWS OF THE SAME SUBJECT, 

BEING A SERIES OF ESSAYS, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE 

Charleston CouRffiR, 
ONE OF THE EDITORS. 

CHARLESTON : 

Printed by T. A, Hayden^ 44 Queen- Street, 
1835. 

RB-PRINTED, WITH ADDITIONS, BY J. B. MXON. 

1853. 



o 



TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTHERN AND 
NORTHERN STATES, 

With a view, of awakening the former to a sense of their rights, and 

the latter to a performance of their duties, and thus to promote 

the harmony and perpetuity of the American Union, the 

following Essays are respectfully 

INSCRIBED, 

BT 

THEIR FRIEND AND FELLOW-CITIZEN, 
The Author. 



NOTICE TO THE READER. 

It is deemed but proper and just, by the Author of the following 
Essays, to state that he tvaS the first Editor, and the first person, as far 
as he knows and believes, to discuss the questions involved in them, 
on principles of international law ; and to assert the amenability, to 
Southern Laws, of Northern Incendiaries, hurling their fire-brands, 
from a remote distance, into the very vitals of the South. The same 
questions have since engaged other, and perhaps abler pens, both at 
the North and in the South, which, however, have only elaborated and 
carried out, in detail, the principles previously developed in some of the 
earlier of the following Essays. With regard to the subject of Northern 
legislation, against the Incendiaries who infest the bosom of the North, 
and make the South the object of their vile plots and daring assaults, 
no claim to originality is pretended, (with the exception of the citation 
and application of the case of Peltier); but the simple credit is claimed 
of having discussed the question, in that aspect, more minutely than 
usual, and having brought to bear on it the concurring, harmonious 
and mutually re-inforcing action of international, municipal and consti- 
tutional law. Among those, who have since discussed the same sub- 
ject, no one is believed to have done so with more ability, legal 
discrimination and eloquence, than a recent writer, in the " Charles- 
TON Courier," over the signature of " Vindei," who, to his honor 
be it said, is not only a sound lawyer, but a Northern man, imbued 
with Southern feeling, and gallantly and zealously battling for Southern 
rights. 



THE AMENABILITY 

OF 

NORTHERN INCENDIARIES, 

AS WELL TO SOUTHERN AS TO NORTHERN LAWS, &c. 



ABOLITION. 

We have never been, and are not now, among the alarmists for the 
safety of Southern institutions against Northern interference. We 
doubt not that fhe great mass of the Northern people are honestly dis- 
posed to respect the constitutional rights of the South, and that they 
condemn the machinations of those misguided fanatics, who, in the 
reckless prosecution of their views of false philanthropy, would apply 
the torch to our dwellings and the knife to our throats. The fanatics, 
we well know, occupy an insulated position in society : on the one 
hand, opposed by the respectable and intelligent, who are at once alive 
to a sense of justice and constitutional obligation, and plainly perceive 
that any foreign intermeddling with t'he domestic policy of the South 
will only injure those whom it is intended to serve ; and, on the other, 
opposed by the mob, wbose hostility to the colored race, founded on 
the principle and promptings of self-interest, threatens them and their 
abolition friends with violence and extermination. Nothing tends 
more to satisfy us of the general soundness of northern sentiment on 
the subject, than the fact, that the Northern daily press has rallied very 
strongly, and very nearly unanimously, in support of the South, and 
denounced, in unmeasured terms, the vile incendiaries, who would 
scatter fire-brands, arrows and death among us. If public sentiment 
at the North sided with the abolitionists, their views and feelings 
would certainly find vent, and their cause advocates, in the daily press ; 
but, instead of this, they are boldly held up to scorn and detestation by 
the editorial corps ; and they are obliged to subsidize a press of their own, 
and, at great expense, to issue, for distribution ^raii*, papers and tracts, 
which nobody but themselves can be found to purchase. It is very 
certain, too, that their labors, so far, have produced only evil to the 



race, which they have selected as the object of their devilish philan- 
thropy. At the North, they have raised the mob against the property 
and lives of their sable yroieges ; and, at the South, they have only 
added to the rigor of the code noir, caused a repeal of laws permitting 
emancipation, and, in numerous other particulars, abridged the enjoy- 
ment of former privileges by the colored race. 

While, however, we have no tears from Northern interference, as 
well because of our reliance on the good sense and good faith of the 
great majority of the Northern people, as because of the unanimous 
determination of the South to snap in twain the cherished and hallowed 
bond of our National Union, sooner than submit to such interference, 
we yet cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the fanatics are increasing 
in number and resources, multiplying their affiliated societies, and 
endeavoring to spread their mischievous doctrines, and gain proselytes 
to their cause, by an incessant and countless issue of incendiary pub- 
lications, and the institution of public lectures — their zeal and boldness 
seeming to gather strength from the species of opposition and discom- 
fiture they have hitherto encountered. To such an extent have they 
carried their effrontery, that they have now a foreign incendiary in the 
land, preaching a crusade against the institutions of the South, and 
he has been recently sufl'ered, nntarred and nnfeathered, to instigate 
the students of the respectable theological seminary at Andover, 
(Mass.,) to rebel against the professors, who prohibited their formation 
of an anti-slavery society. 

In this state of things, what does it behoove our Northern friends 
to do ? We are grateful to them for the language of their press ; but 
the crisis requires something more energetic than newspaper denun- 
ciation. The very agitation of the subject is a wrong, and an actual 
injury, done to the fcouth. It keeps our slaves in a restless and mal- 
content condition, inspiring them with delusive hopes, which can never 
be realized, and may even lead to the re-acting of the Southampton 
tragedy, and such scenes of terrible retribution as have been recently 
exhibited, and are perhaps still in progress, in the State of Mississippi. 
We take the ground, that the non-si aveholding States have not the 
right of discussing the practical question of emancipation, and the 
agitation of the abstract question of slavery is, therefore, worse than 
idle, and positively mischievous. The subject is one of purely domes- 
tic concern to each State in which the institution of slavery exists — it 
belongs most incontestably to the reserved rights of the States, and 



the people of the North have no more right to be devising schemes 
for the emancipation of the slaves of the South than of the serfs of 
Russia. Any attempt, therefore, on the part of the Northern people, 
to direct public sentiment against this institution, and especially to 
assail it in a manner calculated to breed domestic disturbances, and 
to shake the foundations of social order in the South, is justly to be 
regarded as a direct act of hostility towards the South, such as, in a 
foreign people, would be a justifiable cause of war. If the citizens of 
one nation should inundate another with incendiary missives, calculated 
to produce rebellion or insurrection, the latter would certainly have the 
right to demand of the former the suppression of the evil, by the enact- 
ment of penal laws, and, in the event of refusal, to resort to the ultima 
ratio for redress. The English Court of King's Bench tried, and we 
believe convicted, Peltiek, for a libel, published in London, and in 
the English language, against Buonaparte, then First Consul of the 
French Republic ; and will not our sister States, bound to us by the 
close and endearing ties of national union, do at least as much, against 
the reckless incendiaries, who are daily publishing among them, in 
our common language, the most libellous matter against the character 
and institutions of the South, calculated to stir up sedition and rebellion, 
with all their fearful incidents, within our borders 1 The eloquent 
Mackintosh, in all his burning and noble zeal for the liberty of the 
press, displayed in his memorable defence of Peltier, thus broadly 
admitted the principle which we now require our sister States, by the 
ties of common country, and on the ground of constitutional obligation, 
to make the shield of Southern rights : 

" I do not make these observations with any purpose of questioning the 
general principles which have been laid down by my learned friend, (the 
Attorney General). I must admit his right to bring before you those who libel 
any government, recognized by his majesty, and at peace with the British Em- 
pire. I admit that whether such a government be of yesterday, or of a 
thousand years old, whether it be a crude and bloody usurpation, or the most 
ancient, just and paternal authority upon earth, we are here equally bound, by 
his majesty's recognition, to protect it against libellous attacks. I admit 
that, if during our usurpation, Lord Clarendon had published his history of 
Paris, or the Marquis of Montrose his verses on the murder of his Sovereign, 
or Mr. Cowley his Discourse on Cromwell's Government, and the English 
Ambassador had complained, the President de Moli, or any other of the great 
Magistrates, who then adorned the Parhament of Paris, however reluctantly, 
painfully, indignantly, might liave been compelled to have condemned these 
illustrious men to the punishment of libellers." 

We appeal, then, to our sister States of the North, East and West, 

for that mere justice, which the English George denied not to the 



Bated Nafoleon — not to be executed on illustrious historians, writfng 
for the instruction of posterity, but on vile calumniators of Southern 
character, reckless invaders of Southern rights, and wicked plotters 
against Southern peace. 

But there is another important aspect in which we entreat our 
brethren in the non-slavcholding States to view this question- They 
already well know that there are in the South numerous malcontents* 
with our glorious Union, and they ought to see that every renewed 
effort of incendiarism, issuing from among them, against the constitu- 
tional rights and interests of the South, tends directly to increase the 
evil power of those, who would not mourn the downfall of the Ameri- 
can Union, as a calamity to be lamented, in agony of spirit, and in 
sackcloth and in ashes, but hail it as the achievement of Southern 
emancipation from a hated connexion. Will they not, then, deem it 
worth their while to take this formidable weapon from the enemies of 
the Union, and strengthen the hands of its friends in the South, by 
such an energetic and practical interference in behalf of Southern 
rights, as will at once disarm sectional hostility, and tighten the bond 
of Union, already fearfully started in its strands ? Besides, we do not 
hesitate to avow that the question of interference or non-interference 
with Southern institutions is identical with that of UJNION or DIS- 
UNION. On this question, the whole South feels, and will ACT, as 
ONE MAN. Dearly as we cherish the Union — hallowed as it is in our 
affections, as the purest and noblest temple ever erected by patriot toils, 
and consecrated by patriot blood, to the worship of liberty — enlisted 
as our pen has ever been in its defence, in the darkest hour of peril to 
it and its advocates — we would root it from our heart, and be among 
the first to tear down its pillars, though moistening its fragments with 
tears of blood, were the sad conviction to be forced upon our mind, 
that its longer duration was fatal to Southern rights — destructive of 
institutions of which our constitutional fellowship of freedom ought to 
be the perpetual guarantee, and our bodies, if necessary, must be the 
ramparts. The sentiments and feelings which we express are the 
common property of Southern hearts, and God forbid that it should ever 

* As exception was taken to tins passage, when originally published, we 
repeat our disclaimer, already made in another form and place, of any impu- 
tation whatever on any set of men, as a party; and also our declaiation that 
we have, in this passage, no domestic aim, it being wholly intended to produce 
effect abroad, for the common good of all. 



9 

be requisite to testify them by Southern anns. We then warn our 
brethren, that the fanaticism, which, under the guise of the religion of 
peace, is striving to send the sword of war among us, and plant the 
dagger of destruction in our vitaJs, puts the UNION in dangek — in 
IMMINENT AND lEAEFUL JEOPARDY — and we appeal to them, as they 
value the liberties, achieved for us by the valor of our patriot fathers, 
as they respect the Constitution, which the wisdom of that common 
ancestry has bequeathed us, as they cherish the hallowed and glorious 
fellowship of Union and Freedom, which binds us by the ties of coun- 
try and kindred, and makes us the world's best hope--to come to the 
rescue, at once — effectually — AND FOREVER. 

We cannot close this article without returning our acknowledgments 
to the portion of the Northern press, which has spoken a language and 
a feeling grateful to the South, and which, if only followed up by corres- 
ponding deeds, will leave the South no further cause of complaint, and 
establish the Union on the ROCK OF PERPETUITY. To the New- 
York Courier and Enquirer, which has so long and consistently stood up 
for the rights of the South, and now denounces the Abolitionists, as " a 
club of villains," who " ought not to be allowed the liberty to hold a 
public meeting," and " must be put down by the voice of public exe- 
cration "; to the New-York Commercial Advertiser, which warns the 
incendiaries that they will be called upon to answer for their reckless 
wickedness, " perhaps at a more awful bar than any upon earth "; to 
the Boston Gazette, which pronounces the toleration of the Eno-lish 
emissary, Thompson, " disgraceful to the country "; to the Hartford 
Times, especially, which judiciously condemns the measure of Aboli- 
tion in the District of Columbia, (about which a portion of the North- 
ern press, otherwise sound, exhibits an intermeddling spirit,) " as a 
part of the general system of operations of the fanatics and pseudo- 
philanthropists "; to the Boston Atlas,ivovc\ which we quoted an article, 
a kw days since, so generously indignant and constitutionally sound ; 
and to the Northern press generally, without distinction of party, for its 
friendly and gallant championship, the South cannot but award the 
warm tribute of gratitude and willing meed of praise. — \_Courier^ 
Aug. I2th, 1835. 



10 



FREEDOxM OF DISCUSSION. 

Several Northern papers, although severely denouncing the wicked 
interference of the fanatics with Southern interests, and standing up 
boldly, on the ground of the Constitution, for the sanctity and inviola- 
bility of Southern rights, yet loudly exclaim against any course of 
preventive or penal legislation against those miscreants, as an invasion 
of the freedom of discussion and liberty of the press. Are our North- 
ern contemporaries yet to learn that there is a difierence between 
liberty and licentiousness, and that the restraint of the latter is abso- 
lutely essential to the stability and secure enjoyment of the former ? 
Is it a violation of the freedom of discussion, to make the slanderer 
respond in damages for injuries done to private character ? Is it an 
invasion of the liberty of the press, to punish the malignant libeller as 
a violator of the public peace ? These things are done in every well 
regulated community, and no one ever dreams that to punish the abuses 
of free discussion, in word or print, is to impinge that essential and 
sacred right of the freeman. Discussion is free, it is true, in our 
republican land ; but it must respect the rights of individuals and 
communities, or justly draw down retribution on the heads of those 
who licentiously abuse it — the principle, sic uiere tuo, vi alienum non 
Icedas, " so use your own privileges as not to injure the rights of oth- 
ers," applies, in such case, with all its force of moral, social and legal 
obligation. Every community, by the inherent and inalienable right 
and duty of self-preservation, is privileged and bound to punish the 
promoter of sedition, and especially the writer and publisher of sedi- 
tious libels. Will it be said, that one, who harangues the mob in the 
cities of Baltimore or New- York, and urges them to the perpetration 
of violence against the persons or property of the peaceable citizens, 
is not justly amenable to the laws, but must be shielded from punish- 
ment, lest the freedom of discussion, forsooth, should suffer in his per- 
son ? Should any set of men, in those cities, publish incendiary tracts 
or pamphlets, instigating their dupes or tools to murder the citizens, 
and fire and pillage their dwellings, or stirring up the mob to overturn 
the government with force of arms, is the liberty of the press to cover 
them with a panoply of detence, and give them entire impunity in evil 
doing ? Surely, no one is prepared, in the very Quixotism of liberty, 
to maintain so enormous a doctrine. But, to go a little further, and 



11 

become more germane to the matter in hand, is not every nation bound, 
by the principles of international law and natural justice, to restrain 
her own citizens from stirring up rebellion and insurrection, within the 
borders of neighboring powers, with whom she is at peace, and in the 
daily habit of friendly and commercial intercourse ? Has she a right 
to foster in her bosom, or even to permit to go unpunished, in her terri- 
tory, a band of moral assassins, who make it their vocation to inundate 
those neighboring and friendly powers with incendiary publications, 
vilifying their character and directly tending to oveithrow their domes- 
tic institutions, and embroil them in a civil or a servile war? Surely, 
in such a case, the injured nations would have a right to demand and 
obtain redress for wrongs sustained, and prevention of wrongs medita- 
ted, or resort to such measures of non- intercourse, or hostility, as might 
best suit their policy or inclination. This principle was recognized, in 
its fullest eitent, by the British Government, vvhen it brought Peltier 
to trial, in London, for a Hbel on Bonapakte, then First Consul of the 
French Republic — and no one, in that kingdom, no, not even Ekskine, 
who, in the defence of the prisoner, on that occasion, pronounced one 
of the most splendid eulogiums that ever issued from the lips of man, 
on the liberty of the press, ever dreamed that the admission of the 
principle compromised the freedom of discussion. Such assaults on 
the peace of neighboring and friendly nations are as much offences 
against the peace e,nd dignity of the State or nation, in which they 
occur, as if they were seditiously directed against her own bosom, for 
they directly tend to embroil her in a war of commercial restrictions, 
or of arms, with foreign powers. With how much more force does 
this principle, unquestioned in the international code of Europe, apply 
to the co-States of our Union, bound together by the closest and most 
endearing ties of kindred and country, by common interests, common 
language, and common descent — by equal participation of toils and 
triumphs, of sufferings and glory — and which, although forming one 
nation for certain purposes, are yet separate nations for all other pur- 
poses, and are, therefore, in the latter aspect, entitled to the benefit of 
all the rules and usages of international law. Now, what says that 
code of natural reason and natural justice ? Vattel lays it down B. 
II., Ch. I., sec. 18, p. 201, that ''uc nation is to hurt others," and adds 
that "this general principle prohibits to all nations every evil practice 
tending to create disturbance in another State, to foment discord or 
CORRUPT ITS citizens, to alienate its allies, to raise armies, TO 



12 

SULLY ITS REPLTTATION, and to deprive it of its natuial advan- 
tages" ]t is no answer to this to say that the interference of which 
the South complains, proceeds from individiials, not from States. If 
the State, containing the offending individuals, refuses to do justice on 
them, she herself becomes answerable for their crimes ; as much so 
in the case under consideration as if her citizens had pirated foreign 
property on the ocean, and brought it into her ports, and within her 
jurisdiction, and she were to refuse to compel its restoration, or punish 
the aggressors. Vattel, in treating " of the concern a nation may have 
in the actions of its citizens," (B. II., Ch. VI., p. 222,) says, (sec. 72,) 
"the nation or the sovereign ought not to suffer the citizens to do an 
injury to the subjects of another State, much less to offend the State 
itself. And that not only because no sovereign ought to permit those 
w^ho are under his command to violate the precepts of the law of nature, 
which forbids a!l injuries, but also because nations ought mutually to 
respect each other, to abstain from all offence, fkoji all abuse, from 
all injury, and in a word, from every thing that may be of prejudice to 
others. If a sovereign, who might keep his subjects within the rules 
of justice and peace, suffers them to injure a foreign nation, either in 
its body or its members, he does no less an injury to that nation than 
if he injured them himself. In short, the safety of the State, and that 
of human society, require this attention fiom every sovereign. If you 
let loose the reins of your subjects against foreign nations, these will 
behave in the same manner to you, and, instead of that friendly inter- 
course, which nature has established between all men, we should see 
nothing but one nation robbing another." Again, (Sec. 74) — " But if 
a nation or its leader approves and ratifies the act committed by a 
citizen, it makes the act its own. The offence ought, then, to be 
attributed to the nation, as the author of the \n]my, of which the citizen 
is, perhaps, only the instriime7it." [Let our sister Stales look to and 
beware of this, lest this fatal '' perhaps " become indeed applicable to 
them!] "If (sec. 7.5) the offended State keeps the guilty within her 
power, she may, without difficulty, punish him, and oblige him to make 
satisfaction. If the guilty escape, and return into his own country, 
justice may be demanded from his sovereign. And (sec. 76) since 
this last ought not to suffer his subjects to molest the subjects of others, 
or to do them an injury, much less should he permit them audaciously 
to offend fljroign powers ; he ought to oblige the guilty to repair the 
damage, if that be possible, to inflict on him an exemplary punish' 



13 

,'iicnt, or in short, according to the nature of the case, and the cirum- 
stances attending it, to deliver him up to the offended /State, 
THERE TO RECEIVE JUSTICE. TMs is fretty generally observed^ with 
respect to great crijies, or such as are equally contRxVry to the 

LAWS, A^'D THE SAFETY OF ALL NATIONS. AsSASSINS, INCENDIARIES 

AND ROBBERS are seized every where, at the desire of the sovereign of 
the place where the crime was committed, and delivered up to his 

JUSTICE." 

We have made the above extensive quotations from one of the most, 
if not the most liberal, of writers on international law, whose intelli. 
gent authority is universally respected, because we deem them of the 
utmost importance and direct application to the vital question we are 
now discussing. It is scarcely to be imagined that our sister States 
of the North and East will endeavor to evade the application of these 
sound and salutary principles, on the ground of our national union — as 
every consideration of reason, justice and affection, as well as of con- 
stitutional obligation (as we shall proceed to show) should, for that 
reason, only give them additional force. If such be the rules of right 
and good neighborhood towards foreign powers, who will dare to deny 
or resist their application to co- Stales, united by such hallowed and 
intimate ties as those which compose the constellation of American 
freedom and glory ! But to our argument. 

The constitution of the United States comes in aid of international 
law on this question, and, as a conventional law between the States of 
this Union, makes it doubly their duty to interpose, for the protection 
of Southern rights and interests, against their incendiary citizens, who 
hurl the torch and the fiiebrand from a distance, and impiously rejoice 
in the conflagration which, consuming only others, leaves them un- 
scathed, in remote and unmerited safety. What says the Constitution 
of the United States, the great conventional law of our political union? 
"The powers, not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively 
or to the people." No man, we presume, in the United States, is in- 
sane enough to deny that, under this emphatic reservation, each State, 
within which the institution of slavery exists, retains the exclusive right 
of acting on the subject ; and that, in respect to this institution and all 
other reserved rights, the several States are as foreign to each other, 
and the general government to them all, as the latter is to Russia or 
Turkey. Every body admits that no Southern State, except on this 



14 

principle, and in its fullest application to her peculiar domestic institu- 
tions and policy, would ever have entered into the Union. We insist, 
then, that on this question the rules and principles of international law 
apply in their fullest original obligation. But the Constitution of the 
United States further provides that " Representatives and direct taxes 
shall be apportioned among the several States, which may be included 
within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall 
be determined by adding to the whole number office persons, including 
those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not 
taxed, THREE-FEFTHs OF ALL OTHER PERSONS." Here, then, is a 
constitutional and conventional recognition, and therefore solemn gua- 
rantee of the Southern system of domestic servitude, as a basis of 
representation and taxation, as mingling with the life and life 
BLOOD OF the REPUBLIC ; and it is not the least remarkable feature in 
this recognition, that it denies, to the particular class of persons in 
question, a representation per capita, or on the mere principle of num- 
bers, and therefore recognizes them in their twofold character of per- 
sons and property. There are yet other provisions in the same 
instrument, of equal importance and conclusiveness. Thus, "the 
migration or importation of such persons, as any of the States now 
existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Con- 
gress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax 
may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each 
person." Here, then, was an unbounded license, given by the Consti- 
tution, for the extension, by new importations, of the class of persons 
and species of property previously recognized, during a period of ten 
years, and a provision to draw a national revenue from such importa- 
tions — for actual payment to the Union *or the privilege, the legitimate 
fruits of which, a band of moral robbers and assassins would now 
wrest from our possession ! Lastly, the Constitution provides that 
" No person, held to labor or service in one State, under the lavrs 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or 
regulation thereof, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall 
be delivered up, on the claim of the party to whom such labor or 
service may be due." In this clause, the faith of the Union, and of 
each particular State, that it binds in political fellowship with its peers, 
is solemnly and expressly plighted to maintain and enforce the domestic 
policy of the South ; and it is treason to the Union and to the Consti- 
tution, in any State, to permit any of her citizens, directly or indirectly, 



15 

by word, writing, or printing, to disturb this sacred guarantee of South- 
ern rights. No State, having slaves of her own, can even discuss the 
questions incident to their status, their peculiar civil condition, with 
any practical view, except in exclusive reference to herself, and no 
State, not having slaves, can discuss these questions at all, without 
incurring the deep guilt of broken constitutional faith ; and what the 
States cannot do themselves, without violating the Constitution, they 
are bound to restrain their citizens from doing, or to answer for the 
consequences. 

We think we have now fully made out all the positions which we 
designed to establish. We have shown, that to restrain the discussion 
of the slave question, in States where slavery does not exist, and which 
have, therefore, neither any interest nor constitutional right to touch 
the subject, is not an interference with the freedom of discussion, nor 
any abridgment of the liberty of the press, any more than to inhibit 
any other branch of incendiary agitation, of either domestic or foreign 
aim ; and that, whether on principles of international law or constitu- 
tional obligation, the States, in which incendiary Interference with 
Southern rights is now fearfully progressing, to the great disturbance 
of both Northern and Southern peace, are bound to repress it by penal 
enactments, or other energetic measures of redress. 

That the interference, to which we allude, is of a character to require 
the unsparing application of the rules we have derived from interna- 
tional law, and fortified by the constitutional and conventional law of 
the Union, does not admit of controversy. Its direct tendency, and its 
direct design are to stir up insurrection in the South, with its attendant 
horrors, and indiscriminate butchery of women and children, and other 
nameless enormities ; and its direct consequence, if allowed its flill 
malignant and reckless sweep, would be the overthrow of Southern 
institutions, amid scenes of carnage and terror, in violation of the 
Constitution, which contains their solemn guarantee ; or at least the 
destruction of that glorious and happy Union, which our forefathers 
bled in the field and toiled in the council to bequeath us, as the palla- 
dium that would give perpetuity to our liberties. It is but to speak the 
words of truth and soberness, then, to accuse the Tappans (for they 
are the very head and front of the offending) and their vile, and wick- 
ed, and infamous associates, but not more vile, wicked and infamous 
than themselves, as false and malicious slanderers and libellers of 
Southern character and institutions, and as incendiary plotters against 



16 

Southern peace, seeking to uproot the ver}' foundations of social order 
in the South, and set its elements in warring motion, fraught with 
results, at the bore imagination of which, humanity should shudder 
mto convulsions, and weep oceans of tears. We therefore invoke our 
sister States, liy all the sacred ties, which bind us politically and so- 
cially as one people — by all the solemn principles of international law 
and of constitutional faith, which we have just developed, to come, at 
once, to the rescue of the South, and yet more of the Union, from the 
imminent perils that now beset them beth — to arraign and punish the 
infamous incendiaries within their bosoms, whose poisoned arrows of 
mischief and death are aimed at ours — those great moral, social and 
political traitors, whose black-hearted and demoniac criminality would 
make even the technicality of the indictment glide and swell into elo- 
quence. Should they, however, be deaf to this and other appeals to 
their reason, their plighted faith, and their aflections, and not meet 
them, and that speedily, by the necessary course of penal legislation, 
or other equally efficient remedy, we call on the Governor of the State 
of South-Carolina, on the principles of international laAv, which still 
apply in all their force to the States of this Union, within their reserved 
rights, to DEMAND of the Governors of their respective States, those 
moral ASSASSINS of life and character, virtual ROBBERS of pro- 
perty, and actual INCENDIARIES, "to be delivered up to jus- 
tice " here — here to suffer condign punishment for their enormous 
crimes against God, man, their country, and society.* — [Courier, Aug. 
20//t, 1635. 

* We have preferred resorting to international law, instead of relying on 
the clause in the United States Constitution, for the surrender of " fugitives 
from justice," to obtain possession of the Tappaks and their incendiary con- 
federates, in order to subject them to our municipal laws. That the spirit of 
of the clause covers the case, we have no question, but the letter is undoubt- 
edly defective. The framers of the Constitution seem never to have contem- 
plated the case of a person, standing in one State and committing a crime in 
another, and therefore have made no specific provision for the apprehension 
of i criminal thus circumstanced. Yet the case may be one of very common 
occurrence in our cluster of contiguous republics — one, standing just on the 
other side of the Georgia border, may, of malice aforethought, shoot and kill 
another, within the South-Carolina line — this is, beyond all doubt, murder 
within the jurisdiction of South-Carolina, and who can doubt that South- 
Carolina, in sucii a case, would have the right to demand, and Georgia be 
bound to surrender, the felon? Yet the United States Constitution does not 



17 



NORTHERN MCEiNDIARIES AMENABLE TO SOUTHERN 

LAWS. 

In our previous artigfe, we, perhaps, 'were not explicit enough, as to 
the principle, on which Northern incendiaries migiit be demanded, in 
conformity with the rules of international law, to be delivered up for 

provide for the case— for its language is, " A person, charged, in any State, 
with treason, felony, or oilier crime, who shall flee from justice, and be fomid 
in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the Statj, 
from lohich lie fled, be delivered up, to bi^ removed to the State having juris- 
diction of the crime," There is no process of reasoning, by which the Geor- 
gia murderer, remaining in his own State, can be made out to have/erZ from 
justice, or by which South-Carolina can be made " the State from lohich he 
fled." When to/ee and to remain stationary, when rest and locomotion be- 
come identical, then, but not till then, will such ratiocination be deemed 
available and satisfactory. It is clear, then, we think, that the case supposed, 
which is identical with that of theTAPPANs and their miscreant horde, hurling 
their moral firebrands of desolation and death, from their catapult in New- 
York, into the very bosom and vitals of the South, is casus omissus in the 
United States' Constitution ; but, notwithstanding this, we as clearly hold 
. that the reason and spirit of our convejitional rule completely embrace the 
case, and that no State in our U nion would be morally or socially justifiable, 
however it might be in strict political right, in resorting to so flimsy a pretext 
for refusing to deliver up a criminal to the justice of an offended State ; and 
this we would maintain, were international law wholly silent on the subject. 
But the principles of international law do, fortunately for us, fully apply to 
the case, and we prefer resorting to a certain and unquestionable rule of the 
law of nations, in aid of our own constitutional or conventional law, which 
lias either wholly omitted the case, or, to say the least, is of very doubtful 
application and construction. The idea that the law and comity of nations 
have been abrogated by the United States' Constitution, in reference to the 
States of this Union, so far as, by virtue of their reserved rights of sovereignty 
and separate government, they remain separate and independent commtmities, 
strikes at the very foundation of residuary State sovereignty. The United 
States' Constitution is a Constitution or government-proper, so far, and so far 
only, as it has consolidated the States, and made of us " one people, by the 
unity of government." In all other respects, that is, in reference to the 
States, so far, and so far only, as they are not consehdated, the United States' 
Constitution is in the nature of a treaty, or, in other words, of what is termed 
the conventional law of nations. The clause, for the surrender of fugitives 
from justice, in the United States' Constitution, was already a recognized 
3 



/ 



18 

trial by Southern tribimals, and as to the principle on which jurisdic- 
tion mi<Tht be exercised, and punishment inflicted by those tribunals, in 
conformity with the course and usages of municipal law. Vattei, 
lays down the international rule, as follows — The sovereign " ought 
not to suffer his subjects to molest the subjects of others, or to do them 
an injury, much lesfs should he permit them audaciously to oflend for- 
eign powers ; he ought to oblige the guilty to repair the damage if that 
be possible, to inflict on him exemplary punishment, or, in short, accord- 
ing to the nature of the case, and tlie circumstances attending it, 'ra 

DELIVER IIIM UP TO THE OFFEXUED STATE, TIIERB TO RECEIVE JUS- 
TICE. This is pretty generally observed with respect to great crimes, 
and such as are equally contrary to the laws and safety of all nations. 
Assassins, incendiaries, and robbers, are seized everywhere, and, at 
the desire of the sovereign of the place where the qfence ivas com- 
mitted, DELivEKED UP TO HIS JUSTICE." It seems to us that Vattel's 
language is broad enough to include every case, of great crime, (and 
what can be a greater or more enormous crime, than exciting a ser- 
vile war ?) committed against a foreign power, without reference to the 
locus in quo — to the place where the crime was committed. But, even 
taking it for granted, for the sake of argument, that this limitation is 
to be derived from the express reference, made by Vattel to " the place 
/ where the crime was committed," in the sentence last quoted from him, 

provision of the law of nations, and wonld have applied to the States of the 
Union in all its force, if that instrument contained no such provision. The 
recognition and confirmation of international law, m one particular, by our 
common conventional law, surely cannot work the repeal of the former, in 
all other respects, as applicable to our closely united, but not wholly consoli- 
dated States. This is the true State Rights' doctrine, which, while it would 
maintain the Union, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, " iu its whole consti- 
tutional vigor," would yet uphold the several States in the plenary enjoyment 
of their reserved rights, and recognize them as separate nations, bound by 
international law, so far as they are left independent communities, by the 
United States' Constitution, which, to use again the language of Mr. Jeffir- 
SON, has made tliem " a nation for certain purposes only." If foreign States, 
by virtue of the obligations of international law, would themselves punish, 
or surrender up to be punished by us, according to the due course of our 
municipal or common law, such plotters against our peace as Tappan and 
his crew, a fortiori are our sister States, of this intimate, hallowed, and blood- 
bought Union, bound to recognize and apply the same principles, in defence 
of our dearest rights and vltiil institutions. 



19 

we contend that the Northern incendiaries come both within the rule 
and its supposed limitation. Their crime is of a peculiar character. It 
may be as easily committed at a distance from, as within the bosom of 
a community — their weapons of offence are intellectual ones, and the 
press is the catapult from which they may be discharged with any as- 
signable momentum, and to any assignable distance. Their guilt 
partakes ot tlie character of what is known to the law as a seditious 
libel, with intent to stir up insurrection ; and, although they compose 
their libellous missives, at a distance from us, yet they utter and puh- 
lish them here, with intent to produce effect here, and, therefore, accord- 
ing to the rules of both international law, and municipal law, in their 
strictest technicality, this is the locus — the p/ace of their offence ; and 
the right to demand their persons, under the one code, and to punish 
them under the other, is complete. Wherever one acts, he is con- 
structively present, and this is enough for the purposes of criminal 
jurisdiction and justice. No one can doubt that, if a man, standing in 
Georgia, feloniously kills another in the adjoining State of South-Caro- 
lina, the latter State, by virtue of the law of nations, could demand of 
the former the person of the murderer, and, by virtue of her municipal 
law, punish him through her own Courts. The case is equally clear 
in regard to the murderous wret<>hes, who are now busy in discharging 
their poisoned shafts at the bosom and vitals of the South. 



LETTERS ROGATORY. 

An admirable rule, sanctioned by the law of nations, prevails among 
neighboring powers on the European continent, and especially among 
the United Cantons of Switzerland — a confederacy, bearing some re- 
semblance to, but without the national features of ours — which might 
be well applied, among the States of this Union, to make the citizens 
of one State amenable to the criminal laws of another, against whose 
peace they may have plotted and conspired. The enlightened Vattel, 
in B. H. Ch. VI, sec. 76, p. 223, after laying down the general usage 
of nations to be, that '' assassins, incendiaries and robbers, are seized 
everywhere, at the desire of the sovereign of the place where the crime 
was committed, and delivered up to his justice," thus explains the rule 
or custom to which we have referred : " They go still farther in the 



20 

States tliat arc more slridly relvded hy friendship and good neighbor' 
hood : in tho case of those, who commit con)mon crimes, they arc 
prosecuted by the civil power, and obliged to make reparation, or to 
suffer a slight civil punishment; the subjects of two neighboring 
States are reciprocally obliged to appear before the magistrate of the 
place where they are accused of having failed in their duty ; upon a 
requisition of that magistrate, call<^d letters Rogatory, they are cited 
according to law, and obliged to appear before their own magistrates : 
an adimrahJe insfilulion, from which 7nany neighboring Slates live 
togeilier in peace, and seem to form only one republic ! This is in force 
throughout all Sv/itzerland. As soon as the Letters Rogatory are 
prepared in form, the superior of the accused ought to let them take 
effect ; it is not for him to know, whether the accusation be true or 
false ; he ought to presume on the justice of his neighbor, and not to 
break, by his distrust, an institution so proper to preserve good harmony 
between them ; however, if, by constant experience, he finds that his 
subjects are disturbed, by the neighboring magistrates, who call them 
before their tribunals, he is doubtless permitted to think of the protec- 
tion he owes to his people, and to refuse the rogatories till they have 
given him a reason for the abuse, and entirely remove it. But he also 
is to allege his reasons, and to set them in a fair light." The above 
extract seems, in some places, to have been impcrtectly transle^ed, but 
its meaning, we think, is, notwithstanding it is a little obscure, suffici- 
ently obvious, on slight reflection, to render any formal explanation 
unnecessary. The amount of it is, we apprehend, that the magistrates 
of the offended State may cite criminals before them from another 
State, by Letters Rogatory, addressed to the magistrates of the latter, 
■who must of course be bound, unless their respective sovereigns in- 
terpose, to deliver up the accused. It would be very advisable to put 
this very rational and salutary Swiss custom in immediate force, in our 
closely allied cluster of republics, for the punishment of the wicked and 
fanatic wretches at the North, who would give up the South a prey to 
fire and sword, and convert its fair and fertile plains into one great and 
terrible Aceldama, — one desolate and gory field. We submit it, then, 
to the discretion of the chief executive magistrate of our State, whether 
at once to issue his Letters Rogatory to the Governors of the Northern 
and Eastern States, requesting that our incendiary f<)es be delivered up 
for trial by our judicial tribunals, or whether to adopt the milder form 
of requesting, in the first instance, which, under all circumstances would 



21 

perhaps be the wiser course, that they be arraigned at the bar of jus- 
tice, in Ihe several States, in which they reside, and from which they 
have hitherto discharged with impunity their clouds of mischievous 
missiles and poisoned arrows, against Southern character, Southern 
peace, and Southern lives. With this request there could be no ex- 
cuse for non-compliance, for the principle of international law, and in- 
deed of municipal law also, on which it would be founded, is universally 
recognized, and has been probably acted on by all nations of the 
civilized world, except our own. To write, utter or publish papers or 
tracts, with a view to incite insurrection in a friendly neighboring 
power, is an offence against the municipal laws, against the -peace and 
dignity of the State, in which the liberty of the press is so wickedly 
abused, aggravated in our partly national and partly confederated com- 
munity of States, by its direct tendency to disturb the tranquility and 
harmony ; and endanger the existence of the Union. We have a re- 
collection that a Judge in Massachusetts, (Thacher, we think, was 
his name, and it ought to be known that it may be duly honored in the 
South) once fully recognized the principle, and charged a Grand Jury 
to present, for indictment, every case of incendiary interference with 
the South, that might come to their knowledge, as an offence against 
the commonwealth of Massachusetts. A judicious and dignified ap- 
peal, from our State Executive to his Co-Executives of the several 
States, would, in all probability, not only lead anew to the judicial re- 
cognition of the principle, but to its actual enforcement. 



OUR MUNICIPAL LAWS AGAINST INCENDIARY 
PUBLICATIONS. 

The following communication reiterates some of the views which 
we have ali-eady editorially expressed, but, as the point made in it, al- 
though arising out of old and long settled principles of both municipal 
and international law, has been so strangely and so long overlooked, 
as almost to give it the appearance and effect of novelty, and as it con. 
tains citations from our penal legislation, which we had intended to 
introduce into the series of our own remarks, we think its place in our 
columns will be well occupied. It gives us added reason lor and plea- 
sure in publishing it, that it proceeds from a gentleman of solid legal 



22 

attainments and sound legal discrimination, and who, although of Nor- 
thern origin and but adopted into our Southern family, is thoroughly 
attached to Southern institutions, strongly imbued with Southern feel- 
ings, and ready, if necessary, to strike in defence of Southern rights. 

MESSRS. EDITORS, 

I would suggest tliat an application be made, by the 
Executive of this State, to the Executive of the State of New- York, for the 
persons of Tnppan and other prominent abolitionists, to be dealt with under 
our laws. The only question, which can arise, is whether they are liable to 
the criminal justice of this State ? 1 think it may be shown, upon good au- 
tiiority, that they are amenable to the jurisdiction of our courts of justice. 
The laws, to which I particularly allude, are the acts of our Legislature of 
1820 and 1822. The first enacts " That, if any white person shall be duly 
convicted of having directly or indirectly circulated, or brought within this 
State, any written or printed paper, with intent to disturb the peace and 
security of the same, in relation to the slaves of the people of this State, 
such person shall be adjudged guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be 
fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisoned not exceeding 
one year." The act of 1822 enacts "That, if any person or persons shall 
counsel, aid or hire, any slave or slaves, free negroes or persons of color, to 
raise a rebellion or insurrection within this State, whether any rebellion or 
insurrection do actually take place or not, every such person or persons, on 
conviction thereof, shall be adjudged felons, and suffer death without benefit 
of clergy." Now, it may be said that these deluded men are not citizens, or 
even residents of South-Carolina, and are, therefore, not bound by her crimi- 
nal laws, and that, as long as they are distinguished by their present foresight 
and calculating courage, and keep out of the limits of this State, they may 
carry on their diabolical machinations with impunity. This I deny. As long 
as these men confine their discussions to the enlightenment of their own 
people, (who have no eoncern with the subject,) they may continue (if so 
disposed) to expend their superfluous and spurious philanthrj^py, without 
profit, if not without crime. But, the moment any citizen of the United 
States, though living out of South-Carolina, becomes instrumental in the 
circulation, within the State, of any seditious appeals to our slaves, or, in the 
words of the act shall " counsel, aid, or hire our slaves to raise a rebellion," 
(provided the counsel be given within the State of South- Carolina,) he is, 
upon the strictest principles of criminal law, liable to the penalties imposed 
by our laws. Suppose that Arthur Tappan and others, concerned in the 
printing and circulation of abolition tracts, can be shown to have sent their 
papers within the limits of South-Carolina, by mail or otherwise, that act is 
a publication of them in this State, as much as though they had brought them 
personally into the State, or had preached the doctrines, they contain, orally 
to our people. The law of libel furnishes a strong analogy on this subject. 
If a man in England write a libel in the extremest county, and send it by 
mail to London, the receipt of it, at the Post Office, in that place, is such a 
publication of it there as to constitute the offence and render it triable at the 
latter place. So, too, if a man in the remotest part of Ireland should ^^•I•ite a 
libel in that kingdom, and send it by mail to any part of England, the oft'ence 
would be complete, and he wonld "bo liable to be tried in the county where 
the letter was received. These positions are abundantly sustained by decided 
cases, and furnish the \ery principles upon which Tapi'an and his associates 
may be demanded for trial, and subjected to the offended justice of South- 



23 

Carolina, Can it be contended that a man, (we will suppose,) three feet 
within the Georgia line, may shoot at and kill a citizen of South-Carolina, 
and not be amenable to her laws? Which State, in such a case, would have 
jurisdiction over the offence? Can there be any doubt it would be South- 
Carohna? I throw out these suggestions for the consideration of others, 
more competent than myself to examine the subject, and shall be happy to 
contribute my mite, though it were my all, to assist, protect and defend the 
settled and sacred institutions of the country, against open violence or insi- 
dious fanaticism. 



INTERNATIONAL LAW STILL OBLIGATORY AMONG THE 
CO-STATES OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 

It has surprised us, not a little, to find this proposition disputed by 
any one having the slightest pretension to legal discrimination, or 
familiar acquaintance with our peculiar political system. Our Union 
is undoubtedly partly a federal and partly a national one — we are partly 
a nation and partly a confederacy. The Constitution, so far as it 
consolidates us into one people, is a government proper, or national 
government ; in all other respects — that is, in relation to the reserved 
rights or sovereignty of the States — it is a mere treaty, or rather 
league, between confederate powers. In the former aspect of our 
complex system, international law has no internal application to us 
whatever — no more, for instance, than between the different counties 
of England, or the different districts of this State ; but, in the latter 
aspect, it has a full internal operation upon and among the co-States, 
so far as it is not altered or modified by the United States' Constitution, 
either in its character of a government proper, or a league. The 
stipulations of a treaty or league form what is termed the conventional 
law of nations, and they may either alter, add to, or be merely decla- 
ratory of the general law of nations. This is perfectly analogous to 
what takes place among individuals — the general law of the land con- 
trols all their transactions, in the absence of any specific private stipu- 
lations ; but contracts, not repugnant to law or morals, become a law 
to the parties, although variant from the general law. In pursuance of 
this analogy, we may add that a treaty or league, altering, adding to, 
or merely declaratory of international law, in one or more particulars, 
no more abrogates that law in other particulars, than a private contract 
of similar character can have a like effect in the general law of the 
land. Now, the co-States of our Union, by virtue of a stipulation in 



24 

their treaty or league, have mutually agreed, to surrender up to one 
another fugitives from justice, on demand of the Executive of the State 
from which they have fled. This was nothing new in the international 
code — it was indeed but the formal recognition, by treaty, of an admit- 
ted principle and usage of the law of nations, which would have been 
obligatory on the States of the Union, without such formality. Any 
other doctrine will place confederate powers in a worse relative condi- 
tion than \^olly foreign ones, in respect of international duties and 
comity — and surely no one is prepared for so monstrous a result. But 
it is argued that the expression of international law, in one or more 
instances in our national Constitution, is its exclusion in all others — 
as well might it be argued that, were Great Britain and France to 
engage, by treaty stipulation, for the mutual surrender of fugitive crimi- 
nals from their respective territories, international law would cease 
to have any application to them in other particulars ! But perhaps it 
may be only intended to assert that the express adoption, by treaty or 
league, of a branch of international law, in relation to a particular 
subject-matter, excludes all other application of that law to the same 
subject-matter. Thus, for instance, that, as the United States Consti- 
tution only expressly provides for the surrender of fugitive criminals, 
on demand of the State from which they have fled, no other criminals, 
however enormous their crime and deep their guilt, and however pal- 
pably they may have violated the laws of the State demanding them, 
can be claimed, by virtue of the general principles of international 
law, which, without any stipulation at all in the United States' Consti- 
tution, would have had full sway and operation. The mere statement, 
we think, of such a proposition, is sufficient for its refutation. The 
true rule, we apprehend, is this, that where a treaty or compact for- 
mally recognizes any principle or portion of, or alters or modifies inter- 
national law, the great body of that code still remains applicable to the 
high contracting parties, except so far as it may be repugnant to the 
terms of the treaty or compact ; and, where such recognition, altera- 
tion or modification does not cover the whole subject matter, as in the 
case above put, international law will supply the deficiency, unless 
expressly, or by clear implication, excluded. 

The idea, that the principles of international law cannot be applied, 
either among the co-States of the Union, as respects one another, or 
to foreign nations, as respects them all in their national character, 
unless, and except so far as expressly recognized in the Constitution of 



25 

the United States, is founded on an entire misconception of the subject. 
The very reverse is the rule — international law a];)p\ies, p 7'oprio vigore, 
and independently of any constitutional recognition, to the co-States 
internally, and to foreign States externally, unless expressly, or by 
clear implication, altered or modified by the Constitution. Its appli- 
cation to the co-States, mutually, grows not out of the Constitution, 
but out of the fact that, in regard to their reserved rights, they are 
separate and independent comniuniiies, quoad hoc foreign States, of 
uhich the international code is the great common law of reason and 
right. But the other branch of the position we are combatting is still 
less defensible — namely, that international law, in relation to foreign 
powers, is only obligatory on us so far as, or because expressly recog- 
nized, in our national Constitution. The law of nations is applicable, 
as a matter of coarse and of necessity, among all foreign nations, 
subject, however, we admit, to such exceptions as may form a part of 
the fundamental or constitutional law of any particular State, or con- 
federacy of States. A State, not acknowledging the law of nations, 
would be regarded as an outlaw nation, as much so as an individual, 
not recognizing the law of the land, would be held an individual out- 
law. Nor is it a fact that the United States' Constitution has adopted 
the whole international code, as far as respects foreign intercourse, by 
the clause which authorizes Congress " to define and punish offences 
against the law of nations." This is properly, not a legislative adop- 
tion of the code, but a mere recognition of it, as an already existing 
code, presupposed by the Constitution, and existing independently of 
it, as the great social, moral and political law, which regulates the 
intercourse and the relations of independent powers. The clause in 
question, too, does not purport to adopt the law of nations as a code — 
it merely refers to that branch of it, which concerns the definition of 
crime and its punishment, giving the power of criminal legislation and 
criminal jurisdiction, as a matter of domestic regulation, to the Gene- 
ral Government, instead of the governments of the several States. 
The greater matters of war, peace, negotiation and commercial inter- 
course are not glanced at, in this clause, which has been supposed to 
have adopted the law of nations as an entire code ; but they are other- 
wise provided for, although not so far as to cover the whole ground, in 
other clauses, which, without any express reference to international 
law, presuppose and are based upon its existence and obligation. 
The practical result of our reasoning is that, although tho letter of 
4 



26 

our constitutional provision, relative to the surrender, by one State, of 
fugitive criminals from another, may not embrace the case of the 
Taitans, and their fanatic associates, they having never l)een /"wgi- 
tives from this State, yet those miscreants, having violated, by means 
of the Post Office, and other channels of communication, our highly 
penal State laws, prohibiiing the bringing or circulating among us of 
incendiary tracts and papers, are properly demandable, for trial and 
punishment Jiere, by virtue of the law of nations, coming in aid of the 
defective letter, and enforcing the unquestionable and wholesome spirit 
of our national Constitution. 



INTERNATIONAL LAW. 

ITS APrLICATION TO THE CO-STATES OF THE AMERICAN UNION, GENE- 
RALLY, AND WITH ESl'ECIAL REFERENCE TO NORTHERN INCENDIA- 
RIES. 

Wo attempted, a few days since, to establish this position, by a pro- 
cess of reasoning, and we shall now add to our own views the force of 
authority. But, before entering upon the argument from authority, we 
propose to remove what we regard as an error, on the subject of the 
character and binding efficacy of the international code. It is supposed, 
by some, that international law has in fact no obligation, save that 
which is given it by the mere comity or caprice of nations, which 
would indeed be no obligation at all. No formal legislature, it is true» 
has ever been convened, representing the nations of the earth, and 
forming for them a code of reciprocal rights and duties ; but reason and 
justice have nevertheless been the great lawgivers of mankind, and 
their salutary rescripts have been recognized by the usages and practice 
of civilized nations, and expounded by writers high in moral and intel- 
lectual authority. This great code, thus established, recognized and 
expounded, regulates the intercourse and relations, both in peace and 
war, of independent States, in precisely the same manner as the 
law of each community regulates the intercourse and relations, 
amicable or otherwise, of its citizens — their sanctions, however, are 



27 

different, that of the latter beinfr chiefly penalties enforced by the 
magistracy, that of the former being chiefly penalties enforced by the 
sword. Nor is the exposition of the common law of nations any more 
doubtful than that of the common law of the individual States — both 
being lex non scripta, unwritten law, expounded by the writings of 
master-jurists, and the adjudications of judges learned in the respective 
systems. But let us resort to the more apposite and expressive lan- 
guage of the great judicial luminary of New-York, the lustre of whose 
genius, if it no longer adorns the Bench, still illumines the University. 

" Nor is it to be understood that the law of nations is a code of mere 
elementary speculation, without any efficient sanction. It has a real and pro- 
pitious influence on the fortunes of the human race. It is a code of present, 
active, durable and binding obligation. As its great fundamental principles 
are founded in the maxims of eternal truth, in the immutable law of moral 
obligation, and in the suggestions of an enlightened public interest, they 
maintain a steady influence, notwithstanding the occasional violence by which 
that influence may be disturbed. The law of nations is placed under the 
protection of public opinion. It is enforced by the censures of the press, 
and by the moral influence of the great masters of public law, who are con- 
sulted by all nations as oracles of wisdom, and who have attained, by the 
mere force of written reason, the majestic character, and almost the authority, 
of universal lawgivers, controlling, bj their writings, the conduct of rulers, 
and laying down precepts for the government of mankind. No nation can 
violate public law without being subjected to the penal coHsequences of re- 
proach and disgrace, and without incurring the hazard of pmiishment, to be 
inflicted in open and solemn war, by the injured party. The law of nations 
is likewise enforced by tlie sanctions of municipal law, and the offences which 
fall more immediately under its cognizance, and which are the most obvious, 
the most extensive, and most injurious in their effects, are the violations of 
safe conduct, infringements of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy." — [I. 
Kent's Com., pp. 169, 170. 

The United States' Constitution expressly recognizes the existence 
of the international code, by authorizing Congress "to define and 
punish piracies and felonies, committed on the high seas, and offences 
against the law of nations ;" and Congress has exercised the power, 
by several enactments, one of which (that of March 3d, 1819) declares 
" that, if any person on the high seas should commit the crime of pira- 
cy, as defined by the laxo of nations, he should, on conviction, suffer 
death :" thus resorting to the international code itself for the definition 
of offences against it. 

The English Judges have frequently declared that the law of nations 
is part of the common law of England ; (.3 Burr, 1418, 4 Burr, 2016,) 
and the common law is expressly adopted by our Act of Assembly of 
1712. Chancellor Kent, in the great case of Washburne, (4 Johna* 



28 

Ch., Cases, p. 110,) cites with a, ,iro]jation the above principle from 
Burrows ; and, in 1 Dallas, p. 216, it was decided that "the law of 
nations is part of the law of Pennsylvania, and is to be collected from 
the practice of difleient nations and the authority of writers." 

Our next step, in the argument from authority, will be to show thiit 
fugitives from justice may be demanded, by the State, whose laws have 
been infringed, by virtue of the general law of nations, and that trea. 
ties to that effect are not necessary, and, when made, are only declara- 
tory of the common law. On this question we admit that there is 
some controversy, and that distinguished statesmen of our own country 
may be found rallied in favor of the negative ; but still we think the 
authorities, the other way, are so potent, in both number and merit, 
that the point may be considered res judicata, finally adjudged. Chan- 
cellor Kent, in the case of Washburne, says : 

" It is the law and usage of nations, resting on the plainest principles of 
justice and public utility, to deliver up offenders, charged with felony and 
othiT higli crimes, and fletang from the country in wliich the crime was com- 
mitted, into a foreign and friendly jurisdiction. When a case of that kind 
occurs, it becomes the duty of the civil magistrate, on due proof of the fact, to 
commit the fugitive, to the end that a reasonable time may be afforded to the 
government here to deliver liim up, or for the foreign government to make 
the requisite application to the proper authorities here, for his surrender. * * 
Whether such offender he a subject of the foreign government, or a citizen of 
this country, would make no differerwe in the application of the principle ; 
though, if the prisoner, as in this case, be a subject of the foreign country, 
the interference might meet with less repugnance." 

" Vattel observes (b. 2, ch. 6, s. 76,) that to deliver up one's own subjects 
to the offended State, there to receive justice, is pretty generally observed, 
with respect to great crimes, or such as are equally contrary to the laws and 
the safety of all nations. Assassins, incendiaries and robbers, he says, are 
seized everywliere, at the desire of the sovereign in the place where the crime 
was committed, and delivered up to his justice. The sovereign who refuses 
to deliver up the guilty, renders himself, in some measure, an .accomplice in 
tlie injury, and becomes responsible for it. Professor Martens, also, in his 
Summary (f the Law of Nations, p. 107, says that, according lo modern 
custom, a crimimal is frequently sent back to the place where the crime was 
committed, on the request of a power who offers to do the like service, and 
that we often see instances of this. 

" Grotius, who is of still higlicr .authority, declares (b. 2, ch. 21, s. 3, 4, 5) 
that the State is accountable for tlie crimes of its subjects, committed abroad, 
if it aflbrds them protection ; and therefore the St;ite lohere the offender resides, 
or has t-led to, ought, upon application and examin.ation of the casc'eitlier to 
punish him according to his demerit, or deliver him up to the foreign State. 
He says, further, that his doctrine applies equally to the subjects of the govern- 
ment in which /he offender is found, and to fugitives from the foreign State. 
Tiiis learned jurist, finally cuncUides tliat Uiis riglit of demanding fugitives 
from justice has, in modern times, in most parts of Europe, been confined, in 
nractice, to crimes tluii concern the public safety, or tvhich were of' great atrocity, 



29 

and that lesser offences were rather connived at, unless some special provision 
as to them existed by treaty." 

" Heineccius, in his commentary on these passages, (Prcclec. in Grot., h. t.) 
admits that the surrender of a citizen, who commits a crime in a foreign 
country, is according to the law of nations ; and he says, further, that it is to 
be deduced from the principles of natural law. We ought either to pun- 
ish THE OFFENDER OURSELVES, OR DELIVER HIM TO THE FOREIGN GOVERNMENT 

FOR PUNISHMENT. So BuRLAMAQUi (part 4, c. 3, s. 19 to 23) follows the 
opinion of Grotius, and maintains that the duty of delivering fugitives from 
justice is of common and indispensable obligationy 

Chancellor Kent then cites a number of English authorities, 
where the English Judges sustained the principles of international 
law, as above explained by the great luminaries of the science. 
Among these authorities, is that of Rex vs. Hutchinson, in the reign 
of Charles II., (3 Keb., 785,) in which the Court of King's Bench 
refused to bail the prisoner, on habeas corpus, who was committed on 
suspicion of murder in Portugal ; another, that of Mure vs. Kays, (4 
Taunt , 34,) in which Heath, J., remarks, " It has been generally 
understood that, wheresoever a crime has been committed, the criminal 
is punishable according to the lex loci, the local law of the country, 
against which the crime was committed, in bringing the criminal 
to punishment ; and a third, E. I. Company vs. Campbell, (1 Ves.» 
246,) in which it was said, by the Court of Exchequer, that "a 
person may be sent abroad by government and tried, though not pun- 
ishable in England, like the case of one, who was concerned in a rape 
in Ireland, and sent over by the government to be tried, though the 
King's Bench refused to do it. Government may send a person to 
answer for a crime wherever committed, tJiat he may not involve his 
country, and to prevent reprisals J" Lord Coke (3 Inst., 108) is the 
only great English authority, and he was great only in municipal law, 
who controverts the position, and would make a nation the asylum for 
felons, fleeing from the justice of neighboring or friendly States ; but 
Wynne, in his Treatise on the Law and Constitution of England, 
(Eunomus Dialog. 3, s. 67,) shows Lord Coke, who, although a great, 
and perhaps the greatest of commentators on the common law, seems 
to have been as sorry an international lawyer, as he was a corrupt 
and oppressive Attorney General, to have put forth a mere dictum^ 
unsupported by a shade of authority. Wynne goes on to remark that, 
"if, from the very nature of society, subjects are answerable to their 
own nations for their criminal conduct, by the law of nations, they may 
he justly demanded of foreign Slates to which theyjty, and the refu- 



no 

SAL OF DKLIVERINO TH SM UP IS A JUST CAUSE OF WAR." lie fllltliei' 

rt-marks ^^ that io prevent j'rolcclion of fugitives, by clauses in a trcahj, 
only operates as a recognition, not a creation of right." 
To all this. Chancellor Ki:nt adds : 

"The 27th article of the treaty of 1795, between the United States and 
Great Britain, i)rovidi'd for the delivery of criminals, charged with murder or 
forgery ; bnt that article was only declaratory of the law of nations, as were 
also a number of other articles in the same treaty. * * * These articles, 
to use the language of Wynne, were the recognition, not the creation of right, 
and are equally obligatory between the two nations, under the sanction of 
public law, since the'expiration of that treaty, as they were before." 

The Judges of our Court of Appeals have fully sustained all these 
principles. In the case of the State vs. Anderson, (1 Ilill, p. 327,) 
it was decided on two separate appeals. Judge Johnson delivering the 
opinion of the Couiton the former, and Judge O'Neall on the latter 
occasion, that it was murder, in a fugitive from Georgia, against whom 
a bill of indictment for murder was found in that State, and for the 
apprehension of whom the Governor of that State had issued his pro- 
clamation, to kill a private person, seeking to arrest him for the alleged 
offence, without warrant, and although the Executive of Georgia had 
made no demand for him on this State, under the provision made for 
the case, in the United States Constitution. Judge Johnson says : 

" Regarding the relation between Georgia and South-Carolina as that of 
sovereign, independent States, bound together only by the common ties and 
obligations which the laws of nations impose, most of the writers agree that 
it was lawful to arrest the prisoner here, for an otfence committed in Georgia. 
Widely scattered and inconsistent as are the pursuits and interests of the 
different nations of the eartli, there is, in reason and morality, a common 
bond, which vuiites the whole human foraily. The inestimable blessings of 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are the common and unalienable 
birth-right of all — each is bound to aid the other in the attainment of these 
objects, because it is the common interest of all. Nothing can promote them 
more than the strict enforcement of laws, adopted by common consent, to 
secure good order and government; and hence the obligation of one nation 
or government to deliver up fugitives from justice, from another." 

The Judge then cites authorities, and especially approves of the 
decision of Ch. Kent, in Washburne's case, and thus proceeds : 

" I have thus shown that it is not only lawful, but the duty of one sove- 
reign, independent State, to arrest and deliver up the fugitives from justice, 
from another; and that a private person, without a warrant, may, where a 
felonv has been committed, or where there are well founded suspicions of the 
guilt of the party, arrest him. * * - * It follows that, according to the 
law uf nations, which is a part of the natural as well as the common law. 



31 

Col. Martin and his party were justifiable in attempting to arrest the priso- 



ner. 



The Judge then alludes to a question, raised in the case, whether 
the United States' Constitution and Act of Congress of 1793 have not 
superseded and abrogated the law of nations, as between the co-States, 
and whether, therefore, an Executive demand must not precede the 
arrest. The letter of the Constitution applies only to criminal or 
accused persons, fugitive from a State, and the Act of Congress pro- 
vides that, on demand of the Governor of the State from which such 
persons have fled, and the production of a copy of the indictment made 
against them, the Governor of the State, in which they are found, shall 
cause them to be arrested and delivered up. The Judge very readily 
disposes of this question ; and we have no doubt, from what follows, 
that, with us, he holds the negative capable of demonstration. The 
Act of Congress is imperative, as far as it goes ; but it certainly is not 
co-extensive with the Constitutional provision, and it cannot abridge 
the extent or operation of the latter. 

" In the consideration (proceeds the Judge,) of this question, it is not my 
purpose to enter into the exciting and much contested political question, as 
to the nature, object and extent of the relative obligations, which the Consti- 
tution imposes on the several States composing the Union. For the purpose 
of this case, it is wholly immaterial whether they are regarded as entirely 
sovereign and independent, or consolidated into one government, or as occupyiug 
any point hetween these extremes ; provided the obligations which their bonds 
of Union impose do not enjoin upon them to do each other all the evil they 
can. If they stand in the relation of sovereign and independent States, then 
the laws of nations apply, and justify the arrest, and must prevail, unless con- 
trolled by the provisions of the Constitution. 

" Whether we regard the causes which gave rise to the Federal Constitu- 
tion, its general tenor and import, orits particular provisions, it is obvious that, 
whatever may have been the relations existing between the Stales before, it was 
never intended to separate them more widely than they would have been, as inde- 
pendent States. On the contrary, its whole history shows that its object was, 
in the language of the preamble, ' to form a more perfect Union, establish 
justice,' etc. 

" Between independent nations, war, the ultima ratio, is the usual means 
of enforcing the obligations of the laws of nations; and we have before seen 
that harboring fugitives from justice is just cause of complaint by one nation 
or government, against another. It was necessary to guard against this evil, 
and, in this spirit, the provision of the Constitution before referred to, and 
tlie Act of Congress of 1793, Avere doubtless framed — not with the intention 
of abrogating the laws of nations, but in this respect, and to this extent, to 
make them imperative on the States, and to supersede the necessity of resorting 
to the sword. 

" In most cases, the States are separated from each other by an imaginary 
line, and if, passing one of these, the traitor or felon should find a sanctuary, 
where no hand dare touch him, which was not armed with executive autho- 



32 

rity, an age spent in pursnit can scarcely be regarded as a time within whicli 
it could reasonably be expected that nn offender could be brought to justice. 
There is certainly no express provision in. the Constitution, which renders 
this formula imperative ; nor could it ever have been intended, by the framers 
of that instrument, to confer such an immunity on ottenders against public 
justice." 

Judge O'Neall, in delivering the opinion of the Court, on the second 
appeal, refers thus to Judge Johnson's opinion, on the prior appeal : 

'' I do not propose to go at large into the consideration of the question of 
international law, which was so well and so ably argued by my brother John- 
son, at the last term. There can be no doubt of the general proposition 
maintained by him, that, between nations wholly foreign to each other, and 
at peace, comity requires that criminals, fugitives from justice, should be deli- 
vered to the States or authority from which they lied, on demand. This, so 
far as the rule of national law is concerned, is a comity between the govern- 
ments, and not the people of each ; but, as between the government into 
whicli the criminal flies, and its people, the right to arrest is a right necessary 
to its ow-n preservation. They have the right to say, ' We will not be made 
the refuge of the vile and lawless of other nations ;" they have the right to 
put withm the power of their own government, the exercise of the comity, 
which may be demanded, in placing the criminal in its custody. The ques- 
tion, whether the criminal shall be delivered up, is for the government, exer- 
cising the political sovereignty of the people ; whether his arrest is lawful, is 
a question for the judicial department." 

The Judge proceeds to show that, at common law, private persons 
are permitted to arrest, without warrant, if a felony be in fact commit- 
ted, and those arresting have probable cause of suspicion that the 
person arrested is the felon. " Does not (he adds) the same reason 
apply in full force to justify the arrest of a fugitive from the justice of 
a foreign State. He is not entitled, as of right, to the protection of 
the government to which he has fled, against that from which he flies. 
Her protection to him is at the peril of war, with that in which he 
commits a crime." 

The Judge, however, inclines to the opinion, that, in the case of " a 
fugitive from a State v/hoUy foreign, then the person arresting must be 
able to prove the actual guilt of the accused ;" but that, in relation to 
the co-States of the American Union, such strictness is superseded by 
the clause of the United States Constitution which directs that " full 
laith and credit shall be given, in each State, to the public acts, records, 
and judicial proceedings of every other State ; and the Congress may, 
by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records 
and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof;" and therefore, 
whatever will warrant the arrest of an accused or suspected person in 



33 

one State, will also warrant it in another State, to which he may have 
fled for refuge. 

We have now established, by superabundant authority, that the right 
of demanding, on the part of one State, and the duty of arresting Tnd 
surrendering fugitlTc criminals, on the part of the other, is based upon 
the acknowledged principles of international law, independently of 
any recognition thereof by treaty— such recognition, when made, being 
not creative of new, but only declaratory of old law. We shall now 
proceed to show, from authority, and that, too, o^ 2i practical kind, that 
international law, as well generally, as in reference to the particular 
subject-matter under consideration, is still obligatory on the co-States 
of the Union. The remarks of Judge Johnson have been already- 
cited, expressly denying that the United States' Constitution had abro- 
gated or superseded international law, as applicable to the members of 
our intimate political Union, and insisting that its just principles and 
wholesome usages were only rendered the more obligatory by the very 
closeness of our association. The very case, too, in which he assumed 
those positions, is now a ■practical authority in their favor. It must be 
recollected that the Constitutional provision for the surrender of fugi- 
tives applies only to the case of Executive demand, and is wholly silent 
as to a previous arrest ; and yet, in Anderson's case, it was held that 
a private person might arrest a suspected felon, without wanant, and 
previous to demand, and that the judicial department would hold him 
in custody, until full opportunity should have been given to the Execu- 
tive of the State, from which he^fled, to make the demand in constitu- 
tional form. This was clearly a case, in which the principles and 
usage* of international law were applied in aid of the United States' 
Constitution, and with a vieAV to give effect to one of its specific pro- 
visions. Such, too, was the case, of recent occurrence in this city 
in which two individuals (Bowdre and Mitchell) were arrested on 
suspicion of negro stealing in Alabama, and bailed only on recogni- 
zance, with heavy penalty, and responsible sureties, to appear, on a 
given day, to answer any demand which might be made for them by 
the Governor of Alabama. Such, also, is the every day practice in 
New-York ; and it is but a few days since, that an individual, named 
HuRD, was arrested, by the direction of the Mayor of New-York on 
the authority of a letter, from the Chairman of the South-Carolina 
Association of this place, on suspicion of negro stealing ; but, happily 
for the individual concerned, it satisfactorily appeared, on his eiami- 
5 



34 

nation, that those he was supposed to have stolen were his own child- 
ren, and he was discharged. Now, in all these cases, it is too evident 
to admit of controversy, that interyiational law and comity, not consti- 
tutional duty, were the rule of action. 

But it is thought that, as the constitutional provision, for the demand 
and surrender of fugitives from justice, applies only to criminals, or 
accused persons, actually fleeing from one State, and taking refuge in 
another, the general provision of international law, which would other- 
wise warrant the surrender of criminals differently circumstanced, is, 
by implication, and on the principle, expressio unius exduslo alterius, 
thereby repealed, or rather restricted. That there are cases, in which 
this rule would operate, we do not deny ; but the implication, to pro- 
duce this eflect, must be strong and clear, if not necessary. Thus, 
during the existence of the treaty of 1795, between the United States 
and Great Britain, as Chancellor Kent observes, in Washburne's case, 
" It might well have been doubted, whether the two governments had 
not, by that Convention, restricted the application of the rule to the 
two cases, of murder and forgery, for it is a maxim of interpretation, 
that enumeratio unius est exdusio allcriiis.^' Under that treaty, the 
express convention to surrender only two classes of felons, may very 
properly have been held a mutual waiver of the right to demand and 
duty to surrender other criminals. This seems to be the natural and 
rational, if not the necessary implication. None would imagine that 
that the spirit of such an agreement demanded the surrender of other 
criminals, in aid of the defective letter. But the case we have in view 
is of a very different nature. The clause of the United States' Con- 
stitution, relative to fugitives from justice, attempts no enumeration, 
but extends to every class of criminals, to persons " charged, in any 
State, with treason, felony, or other crime.'' Its letter, it is true, re- 
stricts the demand, for the fugitive, to "the Executive of the State from 
which he fled," thereby providing only for a case of actual flight ; but 
who can doubt that the spirit of the loile extends also to the case of 
one standing out of a State, and yet violating the law within it — to the 
case of the Georgia borderer, for instance, shooting across the line, 
and murdering one in South-Carolina — and who can doubt that the 
spirit of the rule should, in such case, be invoked, and not invoked in 
vain, in aid of the defective letter? The rational and necessary im- 
plication, here, is not in favor of the restriction of international law, 
but rather of its continued, and, indeed, increased obligation. For, if 



35 

a fugitive from a State, one who has been within its limits and power, 
and has escaped its vigilance and justice, may be demanded and ob- 
tained, a fortiori may that criminal be demanded, who, careful not to 
put himself within the arresting power of another State, stands within 
the limits of his own State, and does murder or other crime in another. 
But perhaps it may be doubted whether international law itself 
requires the surrender of a criminal so circumstanced. It so, the 
doubt can be readily removed. Yattel says, (b. 2, ch. 6,) that a sove- 
reign ought not to suffer his subjects to offend against the law of an- 
other State ; and that it is his duty to oblige the guilty person to repair 
the wrong he has done : to inflict on him exemplary pumsTinient ; and^ 
according to circumstances, to deliver him up to the injured State 
There to receive justice. Grotius is of the same opinion, main- 
taining that the doctrine applies equally to the subjects of the govern- 
ment in which the offender is found, and to fugitives from the foreign 
State ; and Chancellor Kent, in VV^ashburne's case, says " whether 
such offender be a subject of a foreign government, or a citizen of this 
country, would make no difference in the application of this principle.'' 
But the reason of the thing suffices, of itself, without the aid of autho- 
rity to settle this point. The place ivhere the crime is committed, and 
not the place where the criminal stands, and from which he discharges 
his murderous weapon, or hurls his incendiary dart, is the material 
consideration. We cannot suppose that any sister State would refuse 
to surrender a criminal, who plants his battery on, and wages social 
war against us from her territory. We cannot imagine that Georgia 
would make her territory the sanctuary of the murderer, who, without 
quitting her limits, had perpetrated his crime in this State ; nor that 
Great Britain would shelter the wretch who had hired an assassin to 
do murder in America. It is laid down, by Vattel, that the sovereign, 
who refuses to deliver up the guilty, renders himself, in some measure, 
an accomplice in the injury, and becomes responsible for it. If this be 
so, in giving an asylum to the fugitive, with what added force does it 
apply to a State, whose own territory has been made an armory of 
mischief and death, against her friendly neighbors ? Besides, for all 
the purposes of criminal justice, one is constructively present wherever 
he violates the law ; and this is as well the case, in relation to uttering 
and publishing defamatory or seditious libels, issued from a press, in 
another State, against individuals or communities, as to murder, by 
shooting across the boundary Hue of a neighboring sovereignty* 



" Good morals," says Judo;e O'Neall, " require crirhe to be puniahed, 
let its place of perpetration be where it may." 

In Pennsylvania, this point has actually licen decided^ by the highest 
judicial authority, in relation to a vendor of lottery tickets — whose 
ollence was innocence itself, in comparison with the enormities com- 
mitted by the abolitionists. The Supreme Court of that State, in the 
case of the Commonwealth vs. Gillespie, et al. (7 Sergt, & Rawle's 
Rep., p. 478) said, " The law would be a dead letter, indeed we would 
become the laughing-stock of our sister States, either for the inaccu- 
racy and little foresight of our law-makers, or for the imbecility of 
those employed in its administration, if such a procedure as this was 
not brought within the law. * * * j^ niakes no difference where 
Gillespie resided. * * * He is answerable criminally to our laws. 
* * * For he, who procures another to commit a misdemeanor, is 
guilty of the fact, in whatever place it is committed by the procuree." 

The last question, which we deem it of importance to discuss, is the 
piitclical one, which involves the application of the foregoing princi- 
ples to the case of the Northern incendiaries, who, not daring to cope 
with our laws on our own territory, discharge their missiles of mis- 
chief against our peace, in supposed, and hitherto permitted and en- 
joyed impunity, from their battel ies and workshops, in om* sister States. 
That, in domg this, they violate both the common law, in relation to 
libel, which is of force in this State, and our statute law, which enacts, 

" That, if any white person be duly convicted of having, directly or indi- 
rectly, circulated or brought within this State, any written or printed paper, 
with intent 1o disturb the peace or security of the same, in relation to the slaves 
of the people of tliis State, such persons shall be adjudged guilty of a high 
misdomeunor, and shall be fined not exceeding one thousand dolhu-s, and 
imprisoned not exceeding one year," (Act of 1820.) And "that, if any per- 
son or persons shall counsel, aid or hire, any slave or slaves, free negroes or 
persons of color, to raise a rebellion or insurrection within tliis State, whether 
any rebellion or insurrection do actually take place or not, every sucii person or 
persons, on conviction thereof, shall be adjudged felons, and suffer death 
without benefit of clergy :" 

— is beyond all controversy ; and we would suppose, that it should 
scarcely need argument to prove that our sister States are bound either 
to restrain their citizens and inhabitants from violating our laws, or to 
deliver them up to be punished by us. Supposing that an incendiary 
gang in Charleston, deeming the Bank paper system to be at war with 
the morals and best interests of our republic, should have inundated 
Baltimore with myriads of inflammatory newspapers and tracts, insti- 



^1 

gating the populace to the acts of mob violence and atrocity, which, 
but a short time, since, convulsed, and came v^'ithin an ace of desolating 
that noble city — would any one be found mad or criminal enough to 
contend that South-Carolina would not have been bound to visit severe 
retribution upon the heads of her offending citizens, or to deliver them 
up to punishment under the laws of Maryland'' And, yet there are 
men, in our republic, pretending to knowledge of law and respect for 
justice, who would cover, with af»anoply of defence, those miscreants, 
in other States, who are constantly violating the laws of the South, by 
intruding into its bosom their incendiary publications, the direct ten- 
dency of which is to light up the flames of a servile war — helium plus- 
quam civile ! But, according to the law and usage of nations, and 
the usage of our own republic, is the crime of the Northern incen- 
diary — tvhich, be it remembered, is not that simply of publishing at 
the North, but of circulating here, intrusively, and in direct, 
PALPABLE, AND KNOWN VIOLATION OF OUR LAWS — of a tendency suffi- 
ciently injurious, and a die sufficiently deep, to warrant the demand, 
and require the surrender of the criminal? Vattel says, that to deliver 
one's own subjects to the offended States, there to receive justice, is 
pretty generally observed, with respect to great crimes, or such as are 
equally contrary to the laws and the safety of all nations. Now, can 
there be any crime greater than to assail the vital institutions of a 
neighboring State, to stir up sedition and rebellion, nay, to excite a 
servile war within her borders ? Can there be any crime which more 
deeply offends the laws, and threatens the satety of all nations ? And 
such — such is the deep and damning crime, covering its demoniac 
purpose with the insulted garb of religion, that we charge home upon 
our Northern foes — and can our Northern friends shut their eyes to 
the palpable fact — should they not, will they not do vengeance, just 
and righteous vengeance, upon our subtle and satanic enemies and 
revilers, or yield them up to receive justice at our hands ? But now 
to usage ; and here again w^e must refer to Washburne's case. Wash- 
burne was apprehended in New-York on suspicion of theft — of a lar- 
ceny of the bills of the Bank of Montreal, committed at Kingston, in 
Upper Canada. The prisoner was brought, on habeas corpus, before 
Chancellor Kent, and was finally discharged, not, says that great 
jurist, for "a want of jurisdiction, but the proof is insufficient to detain 
the prisoner — he must, on that ground alone, be discharged." The 
following extract from the Chancellor's opinion will conclusively es- 
tablish our point : 



38 

" It has been suggested tliat theft is not felony, of such an atrocioua and 
mischievous nature, as to full within the usage of nations on this point. But 
the crimes, which belong to the cognizance of the law of nations, are not 
specifically defined ; and those, which strike deeply at the rights of property, 
and are inconsistent with the safety and harmony of commercial intercourse, 
come within the mischief to be prevented, and within the necessity as well 
as the equity of the remedy. If larceny may be committed, and the fugitive 
protected, w'hy not compound larceny, as burglary and robbery, and why not 
forgery and arson ? They are all equally invasions of the right of property, 
and incompatible with the ends of civil society. Considering the great and 
constant intercourse between this State and the provinces of Canada, and the 
entire facility of passing from one dommion to the other, it would be impos- 
sibie for the inhabitants on the respective frontiers to live in security, or to 
maintain a friendly intercourse with each other, if thieves may escape with 
impunity, merely by crossing the territorial line. The policy of the nation 
and the good sense of individuals would equally condemn such a dangerous 
doctrine." 

It is, then, the usage, not only of nations generally, but of our sister 
State of New- York, to arrest and deliver up even petty thieves, to the 
States in which Ihey offend — and how insignificant is the offence of 
larceny, when compared with the great and atrocious crime of the 
Northern incendiary, who would undermine our social system, in vio- 
lation of the Constuittional guarantee which surrounds it, and of our 
laws, which protect it by highly penal enactments, and though servile 
war, death and desolation be the terrible result. We call, then, upon 
New- York, and all our sister States, who harbor in their bosoms the 
vile and wicked miscreants, who plot against and assail our domestic 
peace, to do as much for South-Carolina, against those great offenders, 
as the former was willing to do in favor of a colony of a friendly 
nation, against the pilferer of a few paUry bank bills — paltry, indeed, 
when compared with the monstrous and atrocious robbery of right and 
property, meditated and threatened, in language of scorn, contumely 
and slander, against the entire South. But were there even a doubt, 
under the law of nations, whether the crime of the anti-slavery fanatics 
is atrocious enough to fall within the international usage of demand 
l)y, and surrender to the injured State, the spirit of our admirable Con- 
stitution clears up the difficulty. The language, of that instrument of 
our national Union, harmony and strength, is " a person, charged, in 
any State, with treason, felony, or other crime,^^ etc., shall be delivered 
up, on demand of the Executive authority of the State from which he 
fled — clearly indicating that, in our circle of associated republics, no 
species of crime, great or small, was to give impunity to the criminal, 
from the justice of the injured State, by means of flight to, or residence 



39 

in, another Stata. Were international law then even defective in this 
particular, which we are sure it is not, and be the letter of the Consti- 
tution defective, as we admit it to be, yet the spirit, which quickcneth 
that blessed and hallowed bond of our Union and Liberty, comes in 
aid of the letter that killeth, yielding ample remedy for the deficiency, 
and teaching the course of duty to our sister States, with a voice and 
a power that must be heard and obeyed. We then, again, affection- 
ately and earnestly appeal to our sister States, not as a matter of favor 
to us, but of right, on our part, and duty on theirs, as they love and 
value the Union, hallowed by the blood and cemented by the wisdom 
of our patriot forefathers, and the Constitution which binds us together 
by both national and federal bonds, to put forth their majesty, and at 
once redeem their plighted faith and vindicate their claim to our re- 
spect' and love, by visiting with condign punishment at home, or yield- 
ing up to be punished by us, the vile and wicked incendiaries, who, in 
striking at our domestic peace and social order, are aiming a death- 
blow at the Constitution and the Union. Let our glorious sisterhood 
of freedom but do its duty, and the Constitution will be safe — the 

UNION PERPETUAL. 



THE QUESTION EXAMLNED, 

OR A BRIEF REPLY TO A PAMPHLET ON THE "JURISDICTION OF OUR 
STATE COURTS OVER THE VIOLATORS OF OUR SLAVE LAWS." — By 

a Citizen of the South. 

The pamphlet, which bears the above title, should ere this have re- 
ceived our notice — other indispensable calls alone constitute our apolo- 
gy for the delay. It is a production both well written, and entitled to 
respectful consideration, for its ingenuity and force of argument, al- 
though we cannot concur in all its positions. The inapplicability of 
the clause of the U. S. Constitution, relative to fugitives from justice, 
to the case of the Tappans and their incendiary gang, is well reason- 
ed and clearly established ; the continued obligation of international 
law, on the co-States of our Union, is correctly assumed as scarcely 
needing argument to sustain it ; and the duty of Northern State legis- 
lation, to punish and put down the incendiary foes of the South, is con- 



40 

clusively enforced. In ail these matters \vc concur fully with the 
author; but we are constrained to dissent from his views, when he de- 
nies the amenability, in our Courts, of those who plot our ruin at a dis- 
tance, and seek to accomplish it, by circulating here their incendiary 
publications, in direct and known violation of both our common and 
statute law. We admit, however, that our author has hit on the only 
point that forms a seeming obstacle to our position. He contends that 
national protection and jurisdiction are reciprocal, co-relative, and co- 
extensive ; and infers that, as the Tai'pa?«s and their coniederates de- 
rive no protection from our laws, they owe them no obedience, incur 
no liability to punishment for their infraction, and, indeed, that they 
cannot, in le^^al parlance, be said to have violated them at all. It is 
easy, we think, to answer and overthrow this reasoning ; and our au- 
thor himself seems to anticipate and endeavor to surmount one mode 
of so doing, when he attempts to evade the force of the equality and 
community of privileges, conferred, by the Constitution of the Union, 
on the citizens of each State, in every other State. Let us, then, 
even suppose, for the sake of argument, that the duty of protection is 
the ground and source of the right to punish, yet the clause of the 
Constitution, which declares that the " citizens of each State are en- 
titled to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the several States," 
throws the protection of the laws of each State, around the citizens of 
all the other States, and thus gives to each State the clear right to pun- 
ish the infraction of its laws, within its limits, by citizens of other 
States, intliQUl its U7}iils. Nor will the attempt of our author, to limit 
the application of this clause to the use of actual or bona fide enjoy- 
ment (to which, he seems, erroneously, to hold personal presence ne- 
cessary) of the privileges and immunities, in other States, conferred 
l)y the Constitution, avail him. It is the fact, that the citizens of each 
State are not only always potentially, but in very many instances praC' 
tlcally, in the participation of those privileges and immunities. They 
are not merely entitled to claim, but actually enjoy, the protection of 
the States, other than the one in which they reside. Under the Con- 
stitution of the Union, they have the benefit of the common strength, 
and resources, physical and pecuniary, of all the States ; enjoy both 
the commercial and military protection of the whole ; and acquire a 
participancy, in all those rights and advantages, which the several 
States have yielded up for the common benefit of all. But, apart from 
all this, a citizen of ono State may, and often does actually enjoy local 



41 

privileges in other States, without ever having set foot on their terri- 
tory, Whether within or without their limits, he stands on a perfect 
footing of equality with their citizens — none of the disabilities of alien- 
age attach to him — and he may inherit or transmit lands in other States, 
without naturalization or even residence in them. To have a full in- 
vestiture of all local [)rivi!eges, nothing more is required of him, than 
the same qualification of residence or property, that is necessary in 
the native citizen. Let it be, then, that protection and obedience are 
reciprocal, and that the right of punishment is a consequence of both 
conjoined ; the constitutional community of privilege, enjoyed by the 
citizens of one State, in every other State, makes it incumbent on the 
citizens of each State to obey the laws of all. 

But we do not adrtiit that the right to punish grows altogether out of 
the duty of protection, nor that the latter is absolutely essential to the 
former. Foreign citizens, sojourning with us, for business or pleasure, 
or merely passing through our territory, are amenable to our laws, and 
liable to punishment in our Courts for violating them. They may even 
be convicted of treason, which is a violation of allegiance due to the 
sovereign power. In such cases, it is rather by ingenious anology, if 
not by legal fiction, that foreigners are held to owe the duty of allegi- 
ance and obedience to the country of their temporary sojourn. The 
true ground of punishment, in such cases, is that every one, whether 
native or foreign, is bound to know and respect the laws of the com- 
munity in which he resides ; and the principle of this rule is equally 
applicable to those who undertake to trade with or act in a community, 
in which they do not reside. When one acts in violation of the laws 
of a community, in which he is non-resident, he disentitles himself to 
the protection of the community in which he is resident, and incurs a 
liability to punishment by the former. It is a familiar principle of law% 
that one is constructively present, wherever he acts ; and the place of 
his crime is properly and legally the place of his punishment ; and this 
is peculiarly the case, in respect to such libellous and incendiary pub. 
lications, as those of the Tappans and their horde — they are uttered 
and published here, in violation of our laws, and here, therefore, the 
crime is consummated. The only difficulty is, how to get possession 
of the offender ; let him come within our jurisdiction, after having per- 
petrated the forbidden or illegal act, and who could then doubt our rio-ht 
to punish him. To make the matter still more plain, let us suppose 
that Arthur Tappan, being in New- York, in violation of our Act of 
6 



42 

1820, should have, " directly or indiroctly, circulated or brought, wfthin 
this State, a written or printed paper, with intent to disturb the peace 
or security of the same, in relation to the slaves of the people of this- 
State," or, in violation of our Act of 1822, should l)y means of incen- 
diary pamphlets, circulated here, "counsel, aid, or hire a slave or free 
person of color, to raise rebellion or insurrection in this State ;" and 
aliould, afterwards, in transaction of his extensiA'e mercantile business, 
come within the limits of this State, and be apprehended and indicted 
for his violation of either of those laws. Will it be contended that he 
could not be convicted, however clear the proof— that he could plead in 
bar that he was a citizen of another State, owing no obedience to, and 
therefore guilty of no violation of our laws, and claim an acquittal and 
impunity, at our hands, in very mockery of our rights and insult of our 
feelings? Yet to this end must they come at last, who deny our right 
of jurisdiction, trial, and punishment over non-resident violators of our 
laws ; leaving us without legal remedy, although the offender stand be- 
fore us, and rendering it necessary that the mob should tear in pieces 
the daring miscreant, whom the laws would shield. In our view, the 
plea or defence of alienage, in such a case, would be properly answer- 
ed by saying to the prisoner — " You have violated our law by action 
here, although without your personal presence ; you have dared, in 
fancied impunity, to wage social war against us, the community of 
which you are a member, being at peace with us : and now that you 
have voluntarily put your person within our jurisdiction, and this being 
the place of your crime, punishment shall be meted out to you accord- 
ing to your deserts." Let this be admitted, and we gain our principle, 
that of the amenahility to our laws of non-resident offenders, who per- 
petrate their mischief within our limits.* 

* Our author is much mistaken, in supposing that to give the Laws of this 
State, the operation we insist on, is, " to make laws for the government of a 
people residing in another State — and in no manner bound by those laws.'' 
We do not make laws to govern those residing extra jurisdictionem, in the 
place of their residence; but we do make laws for our self-protection, against 
our own citizens, or foreigners, resident here ; and against all who undertake 
to operate or act within our limits, although non-resident here. Every com- 
munity has the natural right of self-protection against those who assail its 
existence or peace, whether dwelling in its bosom or residing abroad — whetlier 
natives or foreigners. The right to punish the aggressions of a foreign na- 
tions hy liar, and the aggressions of citizens of such foreign nation by law, 



43 

The only difliculty in the case, then, is that we have already advert- 
ed to — hoic to get possession of the person of the offender. This diffi- 
culty cannot affect the principle — let us have the person of the offend- 
er, whether by his voluntary act, forcible apprehension, accident, or 
surrender, on demand, by the State, in which he is resident, and both 
«ur power and right to punish him will be complete. The proper and 
best mode, to obtain possession of such an offender, is, in accordance 
with the principles of international law, still applicable to the co-States 
of our republic, so far as they remain independent communities under 
«ur charter of Union, to make a demand, for the purpose, on the State 
in which he resides. Writers on international law lay it down, that a 
nation is bound to restrain its citizens from injuring, offending, or even 
sullying the reputation of other States ; to punish them for so doing; 
and, according to the circumstances of the case, to deliver them up to 
the justice of the offended States ; and that a refusal to do so will 
make the State sheltering the criminals a party to, and responsible for 
their crimes. In States wholly foreign to each other, war is the usual 
means of resenting and punishing such a refusal. In our community 
of States, forming a partly federal and partly national Union, the war- 
power no longer exists in the several States as against one another.; 
and, instead of the obligation of international law and comity being 
lessened by that circumstance, we concur with Judge Johnson, of our 
Court of Appeals, that it applies with even added force — in other words, 
that our sister States should even more readily and cheexfully yield us 
justice, on our simple request, than grant it on demand to foreign States 
under the pain and at the peril of war. Suppose, then, that we should 
demand Arthur Tappan of the State of New York, and that he 
should be delivered into our hands — will any one deny that, upon proof, 



whenever wc can lay hold of the latter, whether by surrender, or seizure by 
us, or otherwise, is but the application of the same undoubted and whole- 
some rule to different but analogous subjects-matter. We have already 
shown that Pennsylvania recognized this principle in the case of Gillespie, in 
which her Supreme Court held a citizen of another State amenable, in her 
own Courts, to her law against vending Lottery Tickets, although the offender 
was non-resident within her limits, when he violated her law ; and surely no 
one will contend that the incendiary, in Augusta, Georgia, who fires the op- 
posite town of Hamburg; in South-Carolina, by the discharge of a Congreve 
Rocket, would not be amenable to the latter State. 



44 

before a jury, of his violation of cither the Act of 1820 or that of 1822, 
we could convict and punish hiin according to law, in its strictest tech- 
nicality, and justice, in its truest signitication and most merited inflic- 
tion? Admit this, and we again establish our principle — thai of the 
amenahilily of non-resident Northern incendiaries, in Southern Courts, 
for the violation of Southern hues. 



THE PHILADELrHIA INQUIRER. 

We are grateful to the Inquirer for the strong and bold stand it 
takes in favor of the South, against the miscreant abolitionists, and 
their wicked plottings of mischief and murder — it has said many 
things that could not be better said, nor better intended — it wants but 
little to be thoroughly Southern, in both sentiment and action — but 
still it says some things that were better unsaid, and talks of doing 
some things that were better left undone. We concur with the Inqui- 
rer, that it is too late now to say, "Let us alone ;" as the fanatics 
will not Jet us alone, our friends must be up and doing, in the good 
•work of assisting us to put them down. " Laissez notis faire,''^ is our 
true policy, indeed ; but if some will interfere in one way, others may 
properly interfere in the other way. But while we hail the profTered 
championship of the Inquirer, we must protest against the notion, that 
this cannot be yielded, without condemning our institutions as an evil, 
in the very moment of striking in their defence.* What right has 
Philadelphia or Pennsylvania, or any other non-slaveholding City or 
State in the Union, to talk of slavery being an actual evil to the coun- 
try ? The South does not so regard it — and it is exclusively the busi- 

* It has afforded us the highest graMfication to be able to state that, since 
the above article was written, the Phil idelphia Inquirer and the generous 
Philadelpliians have indeed taken the bull by the horns, and liave not only 
ceased intrusively to lenouiice our domestic institutions as an evil, but, in tiie 
very spirit of the Constitution, and with a feeling, at once fraternally and 
properly responsive to the just claims of the South, have actually called on 
their local legislature, for preventive and penal legislation, against the aboli- 
tionists in their bosom, and we congratulate our fellow-citizen?, that there 
are abundant and cheering signs, tliat the noble example of Philadelphia, lias 
not been lost on other sections of the Union. 



45 

ness and concern of the South. The South holds the institution to be 
an ordinance of Providence, for the cultivation of her fertile soil, fatal, 
in the very causes of its richness, to a white peasantry. The African 
race, only, can breathe the miasma of our swamps, in safety and 
health — it is poison to the white man — he dares not live the summer 
and autumn on his plantation, but is obliged to fly to the pine land 
residence, for, even there, a precarious safety. From education, habit, 
and experience, the Southerner looks upon slavery — an institution, 
recognized as lawful under the theocracy of the Jews, and under the 
Christian dispensation, in the days of our blessed Saviour and his 
Apostles— ^as not a curse, but a blessing — as the appointed means of 
rendering the Southern section of the Union fit for the abode of civi- 
lized man, of converting into fields of golden grain and ot a vegetable 
fleece, richer by far than that of Colchis, what would otherwise be 
but a howling wilderness, tenanted only by savage beasts and savage 
men. But, apart from all this, and taking the question on higher and 
impregnable political ground — what right has Pennsylvania to meddle 
with the question? She has got rid of her own slavery, in her own 
way, and in her own time, and without the ofiicious interference of 
her sister Stales. As a State, then, under the Federal Constitution, 
recognizing the institution as belonging to the reserved rights of the 
States, which still choose to maintain it, what more has Pennsylvania 
to do with it ? And if, as a State, she cannot discuss or act on the 
subject, how can her citizens, as individuals, set up a right, which she, 
as a community, does not possess? The point is too plain for argu- 
ment. No State has the right, nor have its citizens, to condevm, as an 
evil, the long settled domestic institutions of a sister State, recognized 
and guaranteed by the common charter of their political union — any 
expression of such an opinion is an act of unfriendliness, of hostility, 
of pragmatical intrusion, calculated only to engender discontent among 
the slaves, and ill feeling in their masters — and thus to sow broadcast 
the seeds of civil convulsion and disunion. Will the Inquirer tell us, 
on what principle, and by what right, Pennsylvania, or her citizens, 
can even express an opinion, on a matter so wholly foreign to her and 
them, by the express terms of our political and social compact of 
Union ? Will it say, how it can reconcile to either reason, right, or 
the Constitution, a course so inevitably calculated to inspire and foster 
an insurrectionary feeling, and endanger vitally the interests and safety 
of the South ? If Pennsylvanians have a right to declare our institu- 



46 

lions an evil to (he country, tlioA' must surely liavp ilie right to eradi- 
cate that evil from the country ; but this the Inquirer disclaims, and 
thus gives up the whole argument. Cui bono contend for the mere right 
to talk on the subject ? — in itself, it is idle, inoperative, except to breed 
ill blood and quarrels, with kindiedand fellow countrymen — but to talk 
on such a delicate matter, and much more to write and print, and cir- 
culate myriads of tracts, with a view of unsettling the institution in 
the South, is emphatically to act — and against such action, more potent 
because only moral, and therefore less capable of being met and coun- 
teracted, than physical effort, we solemnly protest, as unjust, unconsti- 
tutional, and fraught with peril to the South, and to the Union. This 
leads us to answer the question of the Inquirer, " what would the 
South have us to do !" We would have the Inquirer do all that it 
has proposed to do, except declare opposition to slavery ; it may be 
opposed to slavery in Pennsylvania, but it has no right to be opposed 
to slavery in South-Carolina. But we would have it do more — we 
would have it, as it values the Union, as it regards the constitutional 
rights and the very heart's blood of the South, and whether it consults 
the interests and true welfare of the whites or blacks, to go for instant, 
effective, and highly penal legislation, against those who are now 
hurling moral firebrands, thick as the falling meteors that, some time 
ago, lit up the American heavens, but more lasting and baleful than 
that starry rain, into the bosom of every Southern community.* 

* The foregoing views are not novel ones with us, as will appear by the 
following remai;ks, written by us, upwards of two years ago, in noticing a 
friendly hni faulty article in the Baltimore Statesman: 

" We must be permitted, however, to say to the Boston Editor, that he is 
utterly mistaken, in supposing that the people of the South regard domestic 
slavery, as it exists among them, in the light of a curse ; on the contrary, 
they hold it to be absolutely necessary to the proper cultivation of their soil, 
and to he the great source of tlieir prosperity, wealth and happiness : without 
it, their fertile fields would become a wilderness and adesert — their real curse, 
not being slavery, but a climate, which, although congenial to the constitution 
of the negro, would mow down the whites with the scythe of destruction. 
Nor do the people of the South deem slavery "a curse" to the negroes 
themselves — it exists witli us in a mild and parental form, the relation be- 
tween master and slave being cemented as well by affection as interest, and 
the slaves of the South are believed, and, we may indeed say, known to be a 
bettor and a happier rixcc than the idle and vagabond free colored population 
of the North, tlie worn out and half starved manufacturers of England, and 
the laboring classes in most other countries. A recent conversation with an 
intelligLUt individual, who has, for several years past, been a resident in Port 
au Prince, has satisfied us that the boasted freedom of the miscalled republic 



47 



ABOLITION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

EXTRACTED FROM STRIGTUKl.S ON THE LATE PATRK'TXC ORATION OF 
JOS. R. WILLIAMS, AT NEW-BEDFORD. 

The points, on which we are mainly disposed to find fault with our 
champion, are his leaning in favor of abolition in the District of Co- 
Inmbia, and his expression of discontent with the extreme sensitivenesss 
of the Southern States, at impertinent and intrusive discussions of their 
exclusive domeslic policy. 

With regard to the District of Columbia, we cannot but admit the 
strict -political right of exclusive legislation over it, which the Consti- 
tution gives to Congress ; but we nevertheless insist, that it would be 
an act of hostility to the South, on the part of Congress, and therefore 
in violation of the spirit of the Constitution, which guarantees the 
safety of Southern institutions, to legislate with a view to emancipa- 
tion in that District, so long as it remains the common property of all 
the States. The Southern States have the moral right to piit their 
veto on any such exertion of the general will ; for surely justice re- 
quires that their institutions, anterior to and co-existent with the com- 
pact of Union, and guaranteed by it, should not be excluded from a 
territory, in which those institutions were found, on its allotment, by 
the generous cession of two Southern States, as the common property, 

of Hayti, is but a mockery and a name. The agricultural laborers have 
gained nothing, by their revolution, but a change of masters, and are com- 
pelled to work on the plantations, under the direction of a government emi- 
nently skilled in the art of stifling discontent. They have not even escaped 
corporal punishment — for, although exempted from the lash, from the crowns 
of their heads to their ankles, below this latter boundary they are stimulated 
to labor, by applications more potent and severe than the Turkish bastinado. 
We would also say to our Boston brother, with whose remarks, in the main, 
we are highly gratified, that we would have been still better pleased with him, 
were he exempt from all disposition to promote emancipation, even out of 
brotherly love to the South, and in aid of Southern measures. The South 
asks no assistance, wants no sympathy, is fully competent to manage the 
matter for itself, and would rather see the Northern people wholly indifterent, 
and even selfish, on the subject, than engaging in any scheme of mistaken 
philanthropy, in assisting us to get rid of an imaginary evil— one that exists 
in their distempered fancy, and not in our experience or fears. All the inter- 
ference we ask of the North, is to put down, and, if possible, to punish that 
fanaticism among themselves, which would stir up sedition in the South, at 
the hazard of disruption to the Union, and extermination of the African race 
in the United States."— [CaHrier, July 26th, 1843. 




48 

and for the general purposes of the Union. This measure, in the 
District of Columbia, could only be founded on a national condemna- 
tion of the Southern systejn, which the Federal Constitution sanc- 
tions and nphoWs ; and it, therefore, must be regarded as the com- 
menct'ii war against Southern interests and Southern rights, 

contrary lu ib.r. plighted faith of the Union, and of the States which 
compose il, and wholly incompatible with its longer duration. Better 
woidd it be to seek a new ten 7niJes square, in some other part of the 
Union, as the «ite of another capilol, where this embarrassing and 
perilous question cannot arise, than, by urging it, under existing cir- 
cumstance?, to give the demon of disunion power to shake our republic 
into fragments. The very fact that the District has been dissevered 
from Southern and slaveholding States, by their own free gift, for the 
common advantt^ge of the republic, should, by every feeling of grateful 
affection, Andievgry principle of international comity and common jus- 
tice, render Southern institutions safe and sacred from invasion, within 
its limits. 

On the subject of Southern sensitiveness, about the discussion of 
the s(Tbject, the orator himself furnishes abundant reasons for its most 
extreme''indulgence. The mere discussion of the subject involves the 
safety of the South from internal commotion, and, therefore, tends to 
promote a feeling of insecurity, and cause an actual depreciation of 
property. Jl may be but a convenient ball of debate with our speculative 
Northern brethren, but it has a practical bearing upon us, justly alarm- 
ing us for the sanctity of our homes and firesides, our altars and our 
lives. It may be sport to others, but it is death to us — and, if the 
warning voice, which, coming with unanimous burst from the entire 
South, demands silence on this vital suVyect, be reel lossly disregarded, 
the South can no longer exist in fellowship with foes. The N'orth has 
no slavery to er|idicate, and it, therefore, has nothing to discuss on the 
subject, in reference to itself ; this right of discussion, then, can only 
be claiJTied, in reference to.the South, with the view to produce r/f'ect 
in the South — and, in this view of the subject, discussion becomes 
serious and perilous action, in violation of constitutional obligations 
and plighted faith — and such action demands from the South resistance 
a\ the threshhold — rksijta^ce now, and resistance forevek. 



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